The Black Cupboard

My dad’s got this Sonodyne Music system. It has a tape player, an amplifier, two BIG speakers and wait for it..a Record player. Yes I mean the old LP’s (Ps that’s not LP as in Linkin Park but LP as in vinyl Records).

When I was a kid, I used to be fascinated by “the black cupboard” as I called it. I was frightened of it at first and only when there were people in the room did I enter it! Then, one day one of my dad’s old friends came and I got to see what was inside that “black cupboard”. I was still scared but curiosity got the better of me and I decided that whatever lurked in that was too scared of Dad to y’know try to do anything. Plus, I had been reading Tom Sawyer lately and I thought of myself as Tom, alone in the cemetery with Huck Finn (when they unintentionally eavesdrop on Injun Joe). Funnily enough, I found that the cupboard was empty! Then, Bhaduri Uncle (Dad’s friend) took out the apparatus form a big shopper and set it up.  Then, he asked for a tape and inserted it into the player. Very soon, a song was playing away (I think it was Englebert) and I was mesmerised. I loved it!

Since then, whenever I could I used to open the cupboard and insert a tape and let the music play. I had heard a LOT by the time I was 7. Stuff like Pink Floyd (that made no sense to me at the time), Boney M, classical instrumentals like Beethoven, Mozart and of course The Beatles.  My dad used to play it like every weekend and I always used to show up. Pretty soon, I could operate it just fine, and was listening away to glory. Whenever I had to kill time, I went to “the black cupboard”.

One song I was addicted to at that time was “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. I just loved it. I don’t know why, it struck a chord.

Down restless streets I walked alone,

Narrow streets of cobblestone

Beneath the halo of a streetlamp

I turn’d my collar to the cold and damp

I used to think the guy was like a saviour or something, here to shed some light into the gloom he described.  If you look up the lyrics on Google, you’ll find the song’s pretty sad. It’s a description of loneliness, of how empty the guy’s life is. But, I cheered up whenever the song played, whenever I sang it. And boy did I sing it…I sang it like a ritual, it buzzed in my head…car rides, bathroom, wherever…I was always singing it.

Then, the system stopped working and I was crestfallen. I felt like I had lost a very dear friend. Dad did get it repaired once or twice but the problems persisted. But, the music returned to me with a bang.

Dad got this car second hand from his colleague. A white Maruti 1000. I had a lot of stuff that the old car didn’t like an AC, bigger boot space. But MOST of all it had a tape player! I was ecstatic and begun to record my favourite tracks onto tapes. Whenever we went out in the car I would play some thing. Dad even got some tapes of Kishore Kumar and I listened to them as well. But my old friends, The Beatles, Englebert and most of all Simon and Garfunkel returned.

Mom used to give tuitions at her place sometimes. She taught English and Social Studies. There was this guy who used to come to learn English. He was the son of my Dad’s friend. Soumya. One day, we went over to Dad’s friend’s place and Soumya da (term of respect people!) took care of me while the oldies chatted. I found him like SO cool. He had a computer for one. And his wallpaper was a pic of the Beatles. He told me he had a big collection of songs. Queen, Deep Purple, Nirvana, Gun and Roses, Metallica, The Doors and lots more.

Then when I got my own PC in class 6, I used to go over to his place whenever Dad was free and slowly borrowed it all from him. I got addicted to music thanks to him.

Now, I have a fair enough collection of my own. Stuff like Eric Clapton, Dream Theater, The Who, The Script, Bryan Adams that my mom and dad can’t stand.

But whenever I am weary or feeling small and if tears are in my eyes, I still switch off the light in my room and switch on “The Sound of Silence” and it NEVER fails to cheer me up.

“Let’s hope you never leave old friend,

Like all good things, on you we depend,

So stick around coz we might miss you,

When we grow tired of all this ‘vision”

Radio Ga Ga by Queen